The Album: Going back to local tunes, I want to look at is Exile on Mainstream, by Matchbox Twenty. This is a great album, mostly, in my opinion, because it included a lot of their older songs that I used to listen to when I was a younger. I like some some of their new songs, such as How Far We've Come, but I really like being able to listen to 3 A.M. and Push again after many years. What's sad is that before I got this album and listened to it, I didn't realize that all of these older songs were done by the same band. Back when these songs first came out, I didn't pay attention to the bands so I never knew that they were all done by the same one. I know that this is an older album, but I still recommend it to anyone looking for that nostalgic sound.
The Song: For the song, I want to go back to the Beat Crusaders' song Tonight, Tonight, Tonight. I first heard this song used as one of the opening songs to the anime Bleach. This song includes a cool lead guitar part, a steady rhythm, and is just over all cool. The music video is also really cool; the band is performing on stage with giant helium balloons on their heads. While playing the song, a few of the band members float around the stage, attached to the stage by cords. This song is also the first song by the band that I had heard so it's because of this song that I have gone on to pursue more songs by them.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Japan Rocks
I love a lot of Japanese music. Anyone who has gotten a look at my iPod knows that Japanese rock and Pop music makes about 60% of the music that I listen to. I have albums from bands like Asian Kung-Fu Generation, L'Arc~en~Ciel, the Beat Crusaders, and The Pillows, as well as various other songs that were used as openings and closings for different anime. This week I am going to start looking at my favorite Japanese rock songs.
The Band: I think that one of my favorite bands from Japan are the Beat Crusaders. Their music borders on the techno pop, but is heavily influenced by hard rock. Their songs are fast paced, and incorporate synth/keyboard in all of their songs. I think what first caught my attention with them was the first time I saw one of their music videos and they were wearing masks of their own faces printed using a dot-matrix printer. As I later found out, they wear these masks during their shows, and when they take them off, their faces are either blurred out, or they are digitally covered by their masks. The first song that I heard from them was Tonight, Tonight, Tonight which was used as one of the openings to the anime Bleach. Their music also heavily influenced (and was used in full) the music of another anime, Beck Mongolian Chop Squad. Recently I have discovered that they broke up last year.
The Song: This week I have chosen one of my favorite songs to listen to; the Beat Crusaders' Isolations off of their album P.O.A.~Pop On Arrival. I saw a youtube clip of them performing this song live and I couldn't get it out of my head. The concert I saw was the Rock In Japan Festival, 2005. They opened with the song, using the song's strong drum beat to get the crowd going. The concert footage has since been removed from youtube because it is almost impossible to post any music by the Beat Crusaders. The song itself is quite simple, but it's fast paced and there's a lot of energy. The drum beat is strong and fast with a a simple guitar riff being played over it. My favorite part about the song is the short synth/keyboard solo. The song is the second on the album P.O.A. right after a song called ~NAMPLA~ which acts as a soft intro to the album going right into Isolations which pretty much sets the pace for the rest of the album.
The Band: I think that one of my favorite bands from Japan are the Beat Crusaders. Their music borders on the techno pop, but is heavily influenced by hard rock. Their songs are fast paced, and incorporate synth/keyboard in all of their songs. I think what first caught my attention with them was the first time I saw one of their music videos and they were wearing masks of their own faces printed using a dot-matrix printer. As I later found out, they wear these masks during their shows, and when they take them off, their faces are either blurred out, or they are digitally covered by their masks. The first song that I heard from them was Tonight, Tonight, Tonight which was used as one of the openings to the anime Bleach. Their music also heavily influenced (and was used in full) the music of another anime, Beck Mongolian Chop Squad. Recently I have discovered that they broke up last year.
The Song: This week I have chosen one of my favorite songs to listen to; the Beat Crusaders' Isolations off of their album P.O.A.~Pop On Arrival. I saw a youtube clip of them performing this song live and I couldn't get it out of my head. The concert I saw was the Rock In Japan Festival, 2005. They opened with the song, using the song's strong drum beat to get the crowd going. The concert footage has since been removed from youtube because it is almost impossible to post any music by the Beat Crusaders. The song itself is quite simple, but it's fast paced and there's a lot of energy. The drum beat is strong and fast with a a simple guitar riff being played over it. My favorite part about the song is the short synth/keyboard solo. The song is the second on the album P.O.A. right after a song called ~NAMPLA~ which acts as a soft intro to the album going right into Isolations which pretty much sets the pace for the rest of the album.
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